Rise of Islam | Ryan Ranch (Closed)

Course Description:

In the middle of the first millennium, the Arabian peninsula was an unlikely spot for a new religion to be founded. Yet, early in the seventh century, one man, hearing the voice of God, started a new religion. Even more remarkably, that new religion spread widely and rapidly from Arabia, through the Holy Land, across North Africa, into the Iberian peninsula, all the way to France. Not only did the new faith dominate the area but it brought with it libraries, universities, advanced medical knowledge, and tolerance of other faiths and trade throughout the Mediterranean, opening Medieval Europe to the larger world intellectually and economically. In this course, we will examine the rapid spread of Islam and in what ways it led Western civilization out of the darkness of the Middle Ages.